Personalised Number Plate Information

Number Plates

Number Plates

Each number plate has 1, 2 or 3 letters and one or more numbers. Number plates listed here have recently been sold but we have many similar numbers. Please call us or visit our main number plate website

Number plate results shown. If you want to go to our main website you can use our reg plate search facility.

Regplates have over 99% of all available number plates available to buy online 24 hours a day. We are members of MIRAD, APRT & CNG trade dealers associations.

All number plates are transferred in accordance with the DVLA.

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Number Plates Recently Sold Search - GIA registrations

Our team of trained personalised number plate staff will professionally handle your transfer as swiftly as possible with all paperwork change over handled for you including the V5, tax disc and MOT certificate. We offer advice without technical 'jargon', and are always competitive on price.

If you are looking to sell a private plate, our personalised registration plates valuations department can give you an accurate market value on your registration number by post or by e-mail.

Personalised Cherished Number Plates

Since their humble beginning in 1903, cherished numbers have continued to increase in popularity often adding the finishing touch to our prized possessions and very often prove to be a valuable investment.

The First Number Plate Ever Issued

A1 assigned in 1903

The Motor Car Act 1903, which came into force on 1 January 1904, required all motor vehicles to be entered on an official vehicle register, and to carry number plates. The Act was passed in order that vehicles could be easily traced in the event of an accident or contravention of the law. Vehicle registration number plates in the UK are rectangular or square in shape, with the exact permitted dimensions of the plate and its lettering set down in law.

T’S happened again – and set a record: Someone paid $745,000 for the numerical NSW plate ‘29’, eclipsing the previous auction record of $689,000 paid for NSW ‘2’ back in 2003.

It also set an Australian auction record for a double-digit number plate, topping the $530,000 paid for the Victorian plate ‘21’ at Shannons Melbourne Winter Auction last July.

Other strong number plate sales were $82,000 paid for NSW ‘9191’ and $35,000 for NSW ‘85758’, taking total sales on the night for the six heritage plates on offer to $956,000.

Classic motorcycles were also hot property, topped by $37,000 paid for an ‘as new’ 1975 Norton Commando Mk3 850cc with just 29km delivery on its odometer, and a 1950s Austin J40 pedal car sold for $9300.

Other impressive results from the auction included a restored 1964 Porsche 356C Coupe which went for $137,000, a restored 1949 48-215 ‘FX’ Holden which commanded $46,000, a 1962 MGA 1600 sports car fetched $52,000 and a stately and exceptionally low mileage Mercedes-Benz 300B ‘Adenauer’ limousine first owned by the Victa lawnmower family sold for $50,000.

As well, a superbly-restored 1970 Ford XY Falcon GT sedan sold for $180,000.

Other News:

A shortage of vehicle number plates has hit the Kenyan market, causing a backlog in the clearance of cars at Mombasa port.

The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) attributed the shortage that started two weeks ago to increased registration of cars that has outpaced supply of number plates.

“Demand is far much higher than supply. There are just too many vehicles being imported into the country, especially second-hand cars,” NTSA director of registration and licensing.

She added that the supply issue will ease after Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, where the number plates are manually made, increases supply.
The law mandates the prisons department to make the plates.

Official data shows that Kenyans bought 15,858 used vehicles in the first quarter of the year, compared to 14,346 units in a similar period of last year, representing a 10.5 per cent growth.

It is mandatory for imported second hand vehicles to be fitted with number plates before leaving the port.

The country imports about 6,000 second hand cars monthly, according to dealers.
Dealers said that the shortage had hit them hard as they were forced to incur storage charges at the port amid cash flow hiccups due to delays as some had taken loans.

“We are incurring heavy storage charges as the cars are detained at the port despite having paid duty and customs clearance cash in advance,” said Charles Munyori, the secretary-general of Kenya Auto Bazaar Association, a lobby for second hand car dealers.

The storage charges are based on the volume of vehicles and the number of days they take at the Mombasa port or at container freight stations.

Industry insiders, however, said the number plate problem normally occurs every time a new registration number comes up as importers delay registration to take advantage of the newest numbers.

The first series of number plates were issued in 1903 and ran until 1932, using the series A 1 to YY 9999. The letter or pair of letters indicated the local authority in whose area the vehicle was registered, for example A - London, B - Lancashire, C - West Riding of Yorkshire. In England and Wales the letter codes were initially allocated in order of population size (by the 1901 census) whilst Scotland and Ireland had their own sequences incorporating the letters S and I respectively, which were allocated alphabetically: IA = Antrim, IB = Armagh, etc. When a licensing authority reached 9999, it was allocated another two letter mark, but there was no pattern to these subsequent allocations as they were allocated on a first come first served basis. There are three interesting anomalies where a zero has been issued - The Lord Provost of Edinburgh has S 0 and his Glasgow counterpart has G 0 while the official car of the Lord Provost of Aberdeen has RG 0. In addition the Lord Mayor of London has the registration LB 0.

In fact, when the DVLA issues a car’s registration plate, they actually follow a very distinct system.

While it may look like a random combination, a number plate can actually tell you how old the car is and where it was registered.

A new format for registrations was introduced in September 2001, meaning all cars registered after that date would have their number plate made up of three parts.

How to tell where the car is from

The first section of a number plate is the local memory tag – the first two letters of the plate.

This identifies where the vehicle was registered, and is itself broken down into two parts.

The first letter stands for the local area, for example E denotes Essex, while L stands for London.

The plate’s second letter then identifies at which DVLA office in that area the registration took place – multiple letters can signify the same DVLA office.

How anyone can tell how old your car is just by looking at it

The two numbers in the middle of your plate identify how old the car is.

The DVLA issues two lots of number plate combinations each year on March and September 1st.

All plates issued between the 1 March and the end of August will use the same two numbers as the year they are registered.

For example, a car registered in May 2017 would have “17”.

Vehicles registered between September 1 and the end of February the following year, use a similar pattern of higher numbers.

When the format changed in 2001, this group of vehicles were identified differently by starting the labelling from “51” rather than “01”.

Therefore this second lot of numbers will always be 50 plus the year the car was registered – so after 2010, the number starts with a 6.

For example, a vehicle registered in December 2009 will show “59” on its plate but December 2011 will be “61”.

Is any of the plate random?

The final three letters of the number plate tend to be a random combination that make the registration unique.

But it’s not uncommon for cars with neighbouring letter sequences to be from the same manufacturer, due to batch allocation of new registrations to dealers by the DVLA.

The letters “Q” and “I” are excluded from the random sequence, along with any phrases that are deemed offensive.

Using the current scheme, there will be a sufficient combinations to last until the end of February 2051.

What about registrations before September 2001?

From 1983 onward, licence plates used a leading single letter to represent the year of first registration.

The letter “A” was used in 1983, progressing through the alphabet, finishing with “Y” at the end of August 2001.

The rest of the characters on the plate were random.

Prior to 1983, the same system was used, but with the year letter at the end of the plate rather than the beginning.

A PETITION against a police chief's decision to sell the first number plate issued to the county has gathered over 850 signatures.

Retired police constable Alan Matthews started the online petition after he found out that the 'AB 1' licence plate was up for auction.

Police enthusiasts have lambasted the decision to sell the plate, which has traditionally been used on the staff cars of Worcestershire's Chief Constables.

West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) John Campion claims the sale will enable him to invest in frontline policing.

Mr Matthews, aged 69, who worked for West Mercia Police from 1985 to 1994, said: "It's a piece of police heritage that shouldn't be sold off.

"It was the original number that the chief had. I just think that there's other ways the PCC could save money.

"I'm getting quire ratty about it. When you have been in the police you see how much waste there is.

"It's a sad thing that people in the UK have so much history but don't think much of it."

Jon Cherry, the director of regplates.com, thinks the plate will sell for between £225,000 and £275,000.

He said: "We have sold similar plates recently at this level and the market for high quality original issue number 1 plates is very strong.

"The buyers of these are intent on having only the best and only this plate will suffice!"

Mr Campion said his priority is use the assets at his disposal to make West Mercia a safe place.

"The prospect of a chief constable or any public servant using a private number plate belongs in a time gone by, both for security reasons and public expectation," he said.

"Therefore a considered decision has been made to market ‘AB 1’ and any sale proceeds will be reinvested towards frontline policing in West Mercia."

He acknowledged the history behind the plate but said it had not been used for around six years.

A spokesman for Mr Campion said he was not selling anything else apart from the number plate.

Vehicle registration was introduced in 1903 and it is believed 'AB 1' was first issued to Worcestershire's Chief Constable Herbert Sutherland Walker in 1908.

The current format of number plates started in September 2001 with the '51' number identifier as shown in the 'DE51YRE' example above. The idea was to make vehicles easily identifiable and to allow 2 changes per year instead of the traditional one issue per year. This took pressure away from car dealers and diluted the rush with registering all new vehicles at the same time. This new format created several million new combinations offering scope for specific unreleased numbers to be purchased.

The RTA announced on Wednesday that customers can now check out both available and unavailable numbers as well as those that are likely to be available in the future.

Sultan Al Marzouqi, director of Vehicle Licensing at the RTA’s Licensing Agency, said: “This service does not only allow customers to enquire and buy the current codes, but also future codes (Up to Z). Customers can log onto RTA’s website (www.rta.ae) by clicking ‘Inquiring about Distinctive Number Plates’ to know about the available numbers and buy them online.”

He added that the system has been developed and programmed to provide information about available and unavailable numbers along with their prices.

The system also enables enquiring about numbers in four different ways: by code, by number of digits, by entering the numbers required, or by the price.

The RTA also offers distinguished number plates through online auction as well as through live auctions, drawing huge interests from enthusiasts with some plates going for millions of dirhams.

Last year, the single-digit plate D5 was auctioned for Dh33 million, the highest priced number in Dubai.

A TOTAL of 58 number plates are due to go under the hammer at Highlands College next week as part of an auction organised by the Infrastructure Department.

During the last two events, the auction raised more than £421,750 with the money going towards buying equipment for Driver and Vehicle Standards – the department’s authority which oversee the registration of the Island’s vehicles.

In 2013 one anonymous individual paid £71,000 for the plate JSY 1.

Infrastructure Minister Eddie Noel said that he was expecting one number plate to receive particular interest from bidders this year.

The first series of number plates were issued in 1903 and ran until 1932, using the series A 1 to YY 9999. The letter or pair of letters indicated the local authority in whose area the vehicle was registered, for example A - London, B - Lancashire, C - West Riding of Yorkshire. In England and Wales the letter codes were initially allocated in order of population size (by the 1901 census) whilst Scotland and Ireland had their own sequences incorporating the letters S" and "I" respectively, which were allocated alphabetically: IA = Antrim, IB = Armagh, etc. When a licensing authority reached 9999, it was allocated another two letter mark, but there was no pattern to these subsequent allocations as they were allocated on a first come first served basis. There are three interesting anomalies where a zero has been issued - The Lord Provost of Edinburgh has S 0 and his Glasgow counterpart has G 0 while the official car of the Lord Provost of Aberdeen has RG 0. In addition the Lord Mayor